PLASA 2013: Clay Paky Award-Winning Luminaires and Events

	Clay Paky's A.leda B-Eye won a PLASA Award for Innovation at PLASA London.

Clay Paky's stand S80 featured a "bee-eye" design concept and was located in the "Ambersphere village" at PLASA London 2013. Ambersphere Solutions, the sole distributor of Clay Paky and MA Lighting equipment in the United Kingdom and Ireland, supervised the arrangement of the stand, in coordination with Clay Paky, to give the exhibition space a strong impressive corporate image.

About the new ExCeL exhibition center, Pio Nahum, Clay Paky commercial and marketing manager, says: "The location is beautiful and modern, suitable to our needs, as exhibitors. In addition for the first time we were able to organize the Knight of Illumination Awards in the same location of the show, with the many benefits in terms of logistics, for us, and in terms of accessibility for the attendees."

"Our booth, inside the 'Ambersphere village,' has been very popular, thanks in particular to our new B-EYE fixture. Perhaps the only drawback is its distance from London; some visitors might be discouraged to reach the fair every day, and they would come preferably on Sunday or Monday. You might want to consider reducing the exhibition days to three days only instead of the traditional four days."

This year Clay Paky marked its presence at PLASA London with some highly innovative products:

A.leda B-EYE is said to be innovative for its unique lighting effects; its versatility makes it a creative tool. Firstly, it an excellent wash light, with beautiful colors and an impressive 6- to 70-degree zoom. The beam however can be closed further down to as little as 4-degrees, switching the light from wash diffusion into a parallel beam. B-EYE thus can become a beam light for aerial effects. It generates a bundle of individually controllable micro-beams, each with its own colors and shades. A.leda B-EYE also introduces a new feature: the front lens can be rotated and many little beams are created, that can be unfolded or close like petals. Adding colors and dynamic patterns, B-EYE turns into a unique effect light, generating countless kaleidoscopic projections, as the company says no other LED fixture has ever done.

The PLASA Awards for Innovation recognize products that advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice, or taking a key step forward in terms of safety. During the show's opening two days, 45 new products were judged "live" by an independent panel of expert judges who toured the show floor to view each product presentation.

The Clay Paky A.leda B-Eye received a 2013 PLASA Award for Innovation. Pio Nahum was the first to take the stage in order of appearance and receive the award. He "thanked all lighting industry professionals for continuing to recognize the quality of Clay Paky products and the company's efforts to offer innovation without compromise."

The judges said: "The B-EYE has a 'wow' factor. It's an innovative look and a modern retake on a classic effect. It's also a fully-functional and versatile luminaire."

For those applications where a simpler, yet powerful wash light is required, Clay Paky developed a new fixture named A.leda CC (Colour Changer), featuring R-G-B-White color mixing. When colour changing is not required, the new Clay Paky A.leda TW (Tuneable White) can be used, providing tuneable color temperature through additive mixing, ranging from 2,600 to 7,500 K. Finally, for the simplest applications, Clay Paky has created A.leda W (White), a moving head LED flood-light generating a fixed 7,500K white light.

Sharpy Wash 330 is an extraordinarily compact, lightweight 330W wash light, with the luminous efficiency and optical performance of a 1,000W fixture; but it requires half the power, it features one third of the weight, it is much smaller, it is as fast as the Sharpy. Despite its small size Sharpy Wash includes all functions needed by a top category wash light: CMY, color wheel, CTO, 6- to 48-degree zoom, frost, beam shaper. It fulfills the dream of any lighting designer: more lighting points on the rig without increasing power consumption, equipment weight, and costs.

Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330 received an honorable mention by the judges of the PLASA Awards for Innovation "to represent impressive advancements in the state-of-the-art of entertainment lighting."

The sixth annual Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI), held on October 6 at London ExCeL's Platinum Suite, saw lighting and video professionals enjoy a glittering night of celebration and acknowledgement of the exceptional creative talent in their industry.

The ever popular awards are organized by the Society of Television & Lighting Design (STLD), the Association of Lighting Designers (ALD), Clay Paky, and Ambersphere Solutions, and generously sponsored by Chroma-Q, Hawthorn, MA Lighting, Osram, Robert Juliat, and XL Video. They provide public recognition for outstanding achievements in touring, television, and theatre lighting and video design.

The sparkling ceremony was hosted by Andy Collins and saw over 300 lighting and video professionals from the worlds of TV, theatre, concert touring, and events come together to celebrate the diverse range of creative talent in production design today.